Category: Photo Galleries

I always wait way too long to get Visit Reports out, so I’m going to make this one short and sweet, and TIMELY! We sent Bennett back to NY yesterday afternoon. All the pictures from his visit are in a gallery at the end of this short post.

He arrived on Saturday the 10th, flying into Nassau. Fran and I pulled into the Nassau Yacht Haven (one of the many marinas in the eastern end of Nassau Harbour) Saturday afternoon and were hoping to leave for the Berry Islands on Sunday, but weather dictated otherwise. We ended up staying in the marina Sunday and Monday nights, before finally getting out to Rose Island, a few miles East of Nassau, on Tuesday. We anchored there for two nights, and FINALLY had the kind of days we’ve been hoping for – light winds and mostly sunny, and it even warmed up to the high 70’s.

Our first day in Nassau, we took a taxi from the marina to “Fish Fry” – a small area west of the cruise ship shopping area that has about a dozen (maybe 20?) little restaurants and food and drink shacks / stands. Bennett had his first Sky Juice (gin, coconut water with the pulp, and sweetened condensed milk – a Nassau favorite!), and his first crack conch. And he saw enough cruise shippers / spring breakers to realize how lucky he was to be seeing Nassau the Smartini way.

Then we walked all the way back to the marina, stopping at the National Museum of the Bahamas along the way to see some of the most important art of this island nation.

We went on a one-tank scuba dive with Bahama Divers on Monday (Bennett hadn’t been underwater since we went to Australia in 2016). An OK dive, because it was mostly overcast, and the water was only about 72 degrees. But it was good to see that he was able to jump right back into it with no issues whatsoever, and we did see lots of pretty fish, a small spotted eel, and a stingray or two. And the coral was in great shape, which makes Fran and me very happy.

Anchored at Rose Island, we did some snorkeling the first afternoon, up near the island, and although the coral was pretty, we didn’t see much life – certainly nothing dinner-worthy. Also, it was still overcast most of the time. But the next day, we took Killer (our Boston Whaler Sport dinghy) out to the other side of a small unnamed island just south of Rose and found a really big patch of coral that was in gorgeous shape, and about 10 – 12 feet deep. The sun was out, so it seemed a little warmer in the water. And we caught dinner! A big lobster (7 1/2 lbs – the only one we saw), and a big lionfish (also the only one we saw). The meat from just the legs and antenna was almost enough to fill us up, and there was more than enough for lobster scrambled eggs the next morning.

The rest of the time at Rose Island, we just hung out and enjoyed the beautiful water and sunshine, while getting caught up on Bennett’s new life as an art student at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. In short – it seems to agree with him!